GIRL POWER
TLC shares the secret to being the best ever
TLC’s Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas says there’s one simple secret to forging a successful girl group.
“You gotta stay together,” Thomas says with a laugh. “No kicking this group member out and all that stuff. When people fall in love with a group, you love them collectively. Then the new album comes and you see a new face or there’s a missing person, it’s kinda strange for your fans.”
Thomas speaks from experience. TLC, also featuring Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, released its first single “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg” in late 1991. The trio issued four albums and earned a spate of era-defining hits, including No. 1 singles “Creep,” “Waterfalls” and “No Scrubs.”
Those songs and TLC are part of the I Love the 90’s package tour Sunday at NRG Arena, which includes Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath, Naughty by Nature, Blackstreet, Biz Markie and more. It’s a return home of sorts for Watkins, who had a designer kids’ clothing store, Chase’s Closet, in River Oaks for several years.
The genius of TLC’s music was in its contrast. The songs were fun and free-spirited but carried unique, empowering messages about a variety of topics, from safe sex and self-identity to women’s rights and HIV prevention. That dynamic predated a lot of future acts.
“We never, ever wanted to come across preachy to anybody. We just wanted to tell it like it is from our perspective of things,” Thomas says. “I think that when you stay true to your authentic self, more people can connect with you. We all go through the same stuff. It’s all relatable. It’s just natural for us as women. We have that girl power thing. We’re happy that we’re voices for women, especially the women that don’t really speak up for themselves and have that kind of confidence. There’s always a better place to be in with yourself when you’re confident and know who you are.”
The high point was 1994’s “CrazySexyCool” album, which remains the all-time best-selling record by a girl group. It sold 11 million copies in the U.S. alone, making TLC the only girl group to earn a diamond award for sales of more than 10 million of a single album.
No one, not even Destiny’s Child, reaped those numbers. And no current girl group — Fifth Harmony, Little Mix — seems to operate in even the same universe. All those groups, in fact, owe a huge debt to TLC.
But during the trio’s successful run, tragedy struck. Lopes was killed in a car accident in 2002 in Honduras. Thomas and Watkins took some time off but have forged on as a duo, via collaborations with other artists and tours.
“We always had a wide range of fans, but now it’s even more because of the movie that we had, ‘CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story,’ ” Thomas says. The highly rated biopic aired on VH1 in 2013 and featured Keke Palmer as Thomas and rapper Lil Mama as Lopes.
“We captured a lot of this younger generation, which has been amazing. To look out in the audience and see fans as young as 12 and all the way up past our age — it’s unbelievable that these songs have touched people in such a way.”
A self-titled album was released a month ago, the group’s first new material in 15 years. Every track stays true to the signature TLC sound and is refreshingly free of trend hopping. Recent single “Way Back” even features Snoop Dogg to complete the ’90s throwback.
TLC will continue to tour but says this is the group’s final album, which was funded by a Kickstarter campaign that kicked off in early 2015 and quickly raised $430,000, making it the most successful in the crowdfunding campaign in Kickstarter’s history. The high-wattage list of donors included Bette Midler, who covered “Waterfalls” for a girl groups tribute album; Justin Timberlake, Donnie Wahlberg; and Katy Perry, whose $5,000 contribution earned her a to-be-scheduled TLC slumber party.
“Hey — whatever she wants. She just has to let us know,” Thomas says. “Hopefully, we can just hang out for a whole day. We’re trying to get scheduled a slumber party with Katy Perry. We can’t wait for that. All of us have onesies. And hopefully she likes scary movies.”
Lopes is only featured on the new album in a brief interlude where she talks about a rivalry with Bell Biv Devoe. A dispute with Lopes’ estate kept her vocals off the album.
The duo nevertheless remains steadfast in their promise to always honor their late friend — and never replace her. A 2005 reality competition called “R U the Girl?” selected a winner to join Watkins and Thomas to record a single for a one-off performance. And Lil Mama took on Lopes’ raps for a pair of TV performances. But no one can replace Lopes. Still, the heart and soul of TLC remains intact.
“The three of us built this thing together. I don’t think that we’ll ever get to a place where we’re 100 percent fine as far as the pain is concerned with her not being here,” Thomas says. “It’s important for us to make sure that her memory lives on. We went through so much together and built so much and just worked so hard. It just wouldn’t be right to do it any other way.
“I don’t know why people say loved — ed — when a person has passed away. I still love her. I miss her with all of my heart and soul.”